Criticism swirled over whether Mr. Blake had been mistreated because he was biracial. But it was Mr. Bratton’s acknowledgment that excessive force may have been used when an officer threw him to the ground that put a renewed national focus on the everyday arrest tactics long criticized by members of minority groups. The officers failed to report the mistaken arrest, as they were required to do, raising the possibility that it would not have come to light had Mr. Blake not spoken out.

The incongruity of a Harvard-educated professional athlete being manhandled by six white plainclothes officers on a sidewalk in Midtown Manhattan quickly became an embarrassment for the Police Department and a headache for Mr. de Blasio, exposing the kind of unprovoked aggression that he and elected leaders across the country have sought to stamp out.

The officer’s decision to throw an unarmed, compliant man to the ground added to the sense that black people are often roughed up by the police out of view, with few resources to bring attention to their grievances. In a sign of the shifting discourse on race and policing, Mr. de Blasio and Mr. Bratton moved with unusual speed to contact Mr. Blake to apologize. But the gestures also raised questions about whether they would have moved so swiftly if the encounter had not involved a well-known figure.

“This shouldn’t have happened and he shouldn’t have been treated that way,” Mr. de Blasio said in an interview on NY1 on Thursday, echoing remarks made earlier by Mr. Bratton.

By late Thursday, Mr. Bratton had conveyed his apology in a conversation with Mr. Blake, and Mr. de Blasio had exchanged text messages with Mr. Blake.

The actions of the officer, James Frascatore, were under review by internal affairs investigators and the Civilian Complaint Review Board. At least three force-related complaints, one of which was partially substantiated, were filed against Officer Frascatore, 38, with the review board in 2013, said a law enforcement official, who spoke anonymously because the police inquiry was continuing.

Video of the arrest reviewed by the authorities revealed how a botched sting operation had ensnared a sports celebrity, resulting in his being body-slammed to the sidewalk, according to his account, and handcuffed for 15 minutes on Wednesday afternoon.

The team of officers, looking for suspects in a credit card fraud ring, were relying on a courier who identified Mr. Blake as one of the buyers, the police said. The officers also had an Instagram photo of someone believed to be involved. That person, who Mr. Bratton said looked like Mr. Blake’s “twin brother,” turned out to have no role in the scheme.

Officer Frascatore then ran toward Mr. Blake and knocked him to the ground, raising concerns about “the inappropriateness of the amount of force that was used during the arrest,” Mr. Bratton said.

After releasing Mr. Blake, the officers did not fill out a “void arrest” form, leaving Mr. Bratton to learn what had happened from members of his public affairs staff, who told him about news reports about the episode.

Efforts to reach Officer Frascatore on Thursday night were unsuccessful. The Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association said in a statement that it had been “premature and unwarranted” to place him on desk duty.

Mr. Blake, 35, who retired from tennis two years ago, said the episode had drawn attention to the kind of rough arrest tactics that he believed were all too common in New York City.

“I do think most cops are doing a great job keeping us safe, but when you police with reckless abandon, you need to be held accountable,” Mr. Blake, whose mother is white and whose father was black, said in an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

The self-effacing tennis star, known on the tour for his speed and sportsmanship, was leaving the Grand Hyatt New York on East 42nd Street around noon on Wednesday to make an appearance for a corporate sponsor at the United States Open when Officer Frascatore, who was dressed in street clothes, barreled toward him.

“I was standing there doing nothing — not running, not resisting, in fact smiling,” Mr. Blake said, explaining that he thought the man might have been an old friend. Then, he said, the officer “picked me up and body slammed me and put me on the ground and told me to turn over and shut my mouth, and put the cuffs on me.”

A man who sells newspapers near the entrance to Grand Central Terminal said he watched the police rough up Mr. Blake. “They were real aggressive, like he robbed a bank,” the man, Charlie Sanders, 55, said. “They were shoving him around.”

Mr. Sanders said he saw the officers push Mr. Blake face-first into a large, mirrored building support beam near the Hyatt. With his head wrenched to the side and his hands cuffed behind him, Mr. Blake tried to talk.

Mr. Blake said Officer Frascatore did not explain why he was being detained. He counted himself lucky, he added, for not accidentally showing signs of resistance, and emerging with nothing more than cuts and bruises. He has retained Kevin Marino, a prominent New Jersey criminal defense lawyer.

“This happens too often,” Mr. Blake said, “and most of the time it’s not to someone like me.”

The bungled arrest arose out of an investigation into 16 fraudulent American Express credit card transactions, totaling about $18,000, that the police learned about on Monday from an Internet company that buys and delivers property for people in Manhattan. The police asked the company to let them supervise a delivery if the suspects made another purchase, said Robert K. Boyce, the chief of detectives, as they did the next day.

A delivery of high-end designer shoes was arranged for Wednesday, at the Hyatt’s concierge desk.

One of the buyers, a British man, James Short, 27, who was in New York on a student visa, met the courier and was immediately arrested. The courier then pointed to Mr. Blake from eight feet away, Chief Boyce said, identifying the tennis star as someone who had also bought items using false credit card information.

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Mr. Blake playing a match last month in Connecticut.CreditMaddie Meyer/Getty Images

Officer Frascatore, a four-year veteran of the force, made a “fast approach,” Mr. Bratton said, grabbing Mr. Blake by the arm and taking him to the ground. Because he was working in street clothes, Officer Frascatore was not wearing a visible badge.

Mr. Blake was released when a retired police officer working as a security officer at the Hyatt told the officers they had detained a tennis star.

The officers found the second suspect they were seeking in the hotel and arrested him. Mr. Short and the second man, Jarmaine Grey, 26, were charged with grand larceny, identity theft and criminal possession of stolen property. At their arraignment late Thursday in Manhattan Criminal Court, both men were ordered held on $50,000 bond or cash with a 72-hour surety. They were also ordered to turn in their passports.

Mr. Blake told Mr. Bratton that he accepted the apology, but also made a firm request of the commissioner, according to a person with knowledge of the investigation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because it was continuing.

“He made the point that it is very much a bigger issue,” the person said. “That this is what happens every day and that this needs to be the start of a conversation about the ‘us and them’ attitude, how to deal with the policing in the communities where this occurs most frequently.”

Mr. Bratton, speaking at the news conference earlier in the day, was unequivocal in denying that race had played a role, saying, “I don’t believe at all that race was a factor.”

For Mr. Blake, a New York native who attended Harvard for two years before turning pro, the arrest was not the first time his race had thrown him into the spotlight. In 2001, he was locked in a fierce match at the U.S. Open when his opponent, Lleyton Hewitt, started arguing repeated foot-fault calls by one linesman.

“Look at him,” Mr. Hewitt shouted, pointing to the linesman, who was black. “Look at him,” Mr. Hewitt said again, pointing to Mr. Blake. “You tell me what the similarity is.”

Mr. Blake played down Mr. Hewitt’s remark at the time. He did the same on Thursday with regard to the suggestion that he had been racially profiled, though he told The Daily News a day earlier that “there’s probably a race factor involved.”

An active officer with more than 150 arrests, Officer Frascatore has received six citations for excellent police duty and meritorious service, the law enforcement official familiar with his work history said. The force-related complaint against him in 2013 that was partially substantiated was for failing to properly identify himself in a search situation.

A second law enforcement official, who also spoke anonymously because the investigation was continuing, said the inquiry was focused on two questions: what the officer was thinking when he rushed at Mr. Blake, and whether he used appropriate force, even if he believed Mr. Blake was the right person.

“A mistake is a mistake,” the law enforcement official said.

But, he added, “Part of the art of making a mistake like this is how you leave that mistake.” The official said it did not appear that Officer Frascatore ever explained things to Mr. Blake or apologized.

Rick Rojas and Nate Schweber contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Swift Apologies in Harsh Arrest of a Tennis Star. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe